The Blessing of True Fellowship

God told the people of Israel, in the Old Testament, when they got into the land that he had promised to them that they were not to forget that it was he who had given them this land and all of the possessions and blessings of the land. And certainly in our sinful nature we have a tendency to forget, don't we forget all that our Lord has done for us. So thank you, Karen, for that reminder not to forget what Christ has done for us on the cross in shedding His blood. You know there are some people that you just kind of automatically know everything that's wrong with them. You don't even have to ask somehow they will let you know everything that is going wrong in their lives. Now I know none of you are like that but you know some people like that, right? There are others that you just have to kind of pull those things out of. You'd never know things are wrong because they seem to always be joyful and be experiencing gentleness and kindness in their lives. And when I think of those kind of people, I think of the Apostle Paul. I think it's good to remember that as we get into the book of Philippians we're dealing with a man who's in prison. He's in prison. The Bible teaches that he was in prison for four years. He was arrested in Jerusalem. He spent two years in Cessaria in prison. Then the end of the book of Acts tells us that he was in prison in Rome for two years, at least. So it's probably in the third or fourth year of that imprisonment that Paul is writing the letter that we are reading and looking at studying on Sunday mornings the letter to the Philippians. He is in prison. He is chained to a Roman soldier. He is not free to move about in minister as he is accustomed to. And in addition to that, there are other preachers who are trying to take advantage of the fact that Paul's not free, trying to build their own following, trying to do what they can to hurt Paul if they really thought they could do that. But that's what their intent is. Paul will talk about that later in chapter 1. So as we begin the book in Philippians, we might think that Paul would start out something like this. Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus at Philippi, together with the overseers and deacons. You just can't believe how bad it is here in this prison. The food is horrible. The soldiers are crude and ungodly. And then there are those rotten preachers trying to make a name for themselves at my expense. But you don't hear any of that, do you? Look at what he does say in verse 3. I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. It is right for me to feel this way about all of you since I have you in my heart for whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel. All of you share in God's grace with me. God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus. That doesn't sound much like complaining to me, does it you? Those words are full of joy, full of kindness, full of love, full of happiness, if you will. It just sets the tone for the rest of the letter. The whole letter is like this. As we saw last week in introducing the letter, the letter is one that breathes joy, some 16 to 19 times joy or some form of the word is mentioned in this letter. How can Paul feel that way? How can he experience that kind of joy when he is in such destitute circumstances in prison? And other people trying to take advantage of that and working against him. How can he feel such joy? How can he experience that? Because he's reflecting upon the fellowship that he had with the Philippians. That's what brings him such joy as we have just read. It is the blessing of true fellowship that fills Paul with such joy. As he recalls the Philippians and his ministry among them and their partnership with him even now in the gospel, he is just overfilled with joy. His heart overflows with joy and love for them. And so I want us to examine these words this morning and find out what it's like to have joy in the midst of difficulty, what it's like to experience the blessings of true fellowship. Now in order to understand what the Bible means by fellowship, we have to start with the meaning. We're going to find out that the meaning of fellowship is not always what we think it is. In verse 5, Paul uses the word fellowship. He says because of your partnership, there it is. If you have a King James Version, it's the word fellowship. Because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day into now. Then down in verse 7, middle of the verse, he says, for whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share. There's the word again, share in God's grace with me. Now reading our English versions, we would probably not recognize that Paul really is using the same word. It's the Greek word coinonia. And there are two different forms of it here. One of them is translated partnership. The other is translated share. But they both, both of those concepts together give us the idea in the meaning, the biblical idea of fellowship. What is the biblical idea? It means to participate together, to partner together in something or to share something, to have something in common. It's a joint participation in something that you share in common. Now sometimes in the Bible, the word is used of our relationship with God and sometimes it's used of our relationship with other Christians. When the Bible uses the word fellowship or this Greek word coinonia and relationship to God, it has to do with being a partner in his life, participating in the very life of God. So really it's talking about our salvation, that we participate in his life. As Peter says, we are partakers of the divine nature. Now oftentimes we may have heard that there's a difference in relationship and fellowship and we distinguish those two words. We say that our relationship with God is our salvation. Our fellowship with God is when we have our sin confessed and we're walking in obedience to God and so forth. That's not really the biblical meaning of the word. The word coinonia, when it's used in relationship with God, has to do with our relationship with him, that we have become partners in the same life that he has, shares in the divine nature, it's talking about our salvation. Maybe we should use instead of the word fellowship for being in fellowship with God as Christians. Maybe we should just use the more biblical word we're walking in obedience to God. But the word fellowship in the Bible has to do with sharing in the same life. So it's talking really about our salvation, participating in the very life that God gives us in salvation. When the word is used of people, it means that we have a joint participation in the same life. We share, we have in common the same life in Christ and we also share in common the same work in Christ. We're partners together in His work. So the idea is that if you know Christ as your Savior, you share with every other believer in Christ, every other person who's trusted Christ, you share with them a common life, spiritual life in Christ. That's fellowship together. But it also speaks of partnership, as Paul does here, participation together in the work of the gospel. Now we'll talk a little bit more about that later, but I just wanted to see the meaning of that word really has to do with sharing in, participating in, partnering with someone in something that we share in common. Our life in Christ, we share the same life of God with Him and our fellowship together, we share in a common salvation and in a common work with God. Now I want you to see the Philippians relationship or fellowship together with Paul. What was their fellowship with Paul like? Paul mentions three things about their fellowship together. In verse five, it is a fellowship in the gospel because of your partnership in the gospel he says from the first day until now. You have shared with me in the gospel and he's not just talking about the gift they've given him. We saw last week that they sent several times, gifts to Paul. In fact, one of the reasons he's writing this letter is to thank them for a gift they have sent to him through a Paphroditis. He's not here talking just about you shared with me in giving. That's part of it, but they also shared with him in their hospitality when he was in Philippi to enable him to preach the gospel. They provided a place for him to stay, but they also shared with him in the work of the gospel by sharing the gospel themselves. They were involved in the work themselves and so they were partnering together in getting the gospel out. So they were partnering, sharing, fellowshiping in the gospel. Whenever we share in getting the gospel out, we are partnering with, fellowshiping with every other believer in this great worldwide task of getting the gospel to other people. We are partners together in the gospel. Secondly Paul said, you are partners with me, sharing with me in chains. Verse seven, middle of the verse, he says, for whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God's grace with me. So you are fellowshiping with me. Not only in the gospel, you fellowship with me in chains. In other words, my imprisonment you identify with. Even when it's dangerous for people to say, hey, we know Paul, we're one of his guys. We're in the same team. He's on. Even when it's dangerous to do that because Paul is in prison. And you don't want to be identified when someone has been arrested for what he's doing, reaching the gospel. Even when that's the case, Paul said, you folks, unashamedly partnered with me in my chains. You were willing to say, I'm with you. And you know when people are in trouble is the time when they need us the most. When people are in trouble, when people are suffering for the cause of Christ, that's when they need to know more than any other time that we are with them, that we're partnering with them, that we're not ashamed to be seen with them, to be fellowshiping with them. So they fellowshiped in his chains. Thirdly, they fellowshiped in defending and confirming the gospel. He says, they're in verse 7. He says, whether I'm in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God's grace with me. Now, what does he mean by defending and confirming the gospel? The defend the gospel means to defend it from attack, to take up for the gospel, to clarify what the gospel is, to defend the gospel then is to declare the gospel and then to clarify it so that it is defended from all attacks, to proclaim the gospel in other words. And then to confirm the gospel is to prove it. The word confirm means to show confirming proofs of the gospel. And what Paul is probably speaking of here is his trial because he has maybe already done this or will do it or maybe both are true. He may have already appeared before Caesar and may yet appear again where he will be given a chance, an opportunity to state his defense of what he has done and Paul is prepared to defend the gospel. He is prepared to give a legal defense for the gospel to explain clearly what the gospel is. And he is also prepared to give proofs that the gospel is true. So he's probably talking about his legal defense here and he's saying, even while I'm, whether I'm in chains back in my prison or whether or not I'm standing before Caesar, defending the gospel and proving that it's true, you stand with me. And isn't it good to know that there were some people, I'm sure it was an encouragement to Paul to know that there were some people who stood with him, who were not ashamed even when Paul was in public trial and could be sentenced to death. The Philippians are saying, we're with you, Paul. We stand with you. And you know, we have brothers and sisters all over the world who suffer for the cause of Christ. We don't have much suffering in this country, but there are many countries in the world where people do suffer because of the gospel. Because they are defending the faith and defending the gospel and they are proving the gospel that it really is true and they're preaching and proclaiming the gospel. There are some people in prison today in other parts of the world. And as we have opportunity, we need to take our stand with them and unashamedly say, we are with them. We support you. We help you. That's exactly what the Philippian church was doing for Paul suffering in prison. Do we pray for those who are suffering? Do we partner with them and help them? The same thing is true in the church. When someone is under attack for their stand for Christ, do we shy away from them? Because we don't want to be included in that attack or do we come to their help and say, I want to take a public stand with you and behind you, I support you for the cause of Christ. So they were fellow shipping with Paul in the gospel, in his chains and in defending and confirming the gospel. What does that mean for us, for our fellowship, what kind of fellowship do we have in the gospel and with people's chains and in defending and confirming the gospel? What is it that binds us together? What is it that makes us different from the world? In thinking of our fellowship and I'm still expanding on the biblical meaning of the word, coenania, in our understanding of fellowship, what does it mean for us to have fellowship with one another? I believe as the Bible uses the word, it means three things. First of all, it means we share in a common life. We share in a common life. If you know Jesus Christ as your Savior, you have a common life with every other person who's trusted Christ as Savior. And it's a wonderful thing to know that. Occasionally, I've had opportunity to go to a mission field and either to teach or to minister with a missionary there and whether it was in Ukraine or Brazil or Venezuela or Hungary or Japan or wherever it might be, I could not speak those people's languages. And so I felt very much distant from them as far as personal conversation. But once I got up and started preaching the gospel and talking about our life in Christ, even through a translator you can see their faces warm up. And you can see the nods and the smiles and the recognition that yes, you are a brother. We are one in Christ. I think maybe I told you about the time I spoke in a church in Venezuela that had never had an American or any foreigner to speak in their church. It was a rural church and they did not know what to expect. And when I started speaking in English, they were kind of blown away by that. But then Tim Darling was translating for me and we got about five minutes into the message and I could see people were right with me. Why? Because they understood. I may be using a different language, but I was talking about the same thing they have in their heart that I have in my heart. We share a common bond in Christ, a common life in Christ. And someday, thank God we will all be together in heaven, sharing that common life together. There will be no language barriers that will just rejoice together in our salvation. Now my friend, you don't know what that's like if you've never trusted Jesus as your Savior. It's only if you have come to a point in your life where you've recognized that you cannot get to heaven by your own good works, by what you do, by trying to live a good life, or be a good neighbor, a good family provider, or whatever. Good church member. It's only if you've come to the place where you've realized I cannot work or earn my way to heaven. But I must trust in what Jesus did for me on the cross when he died on the cross for my sins. If you've come to that point and you've trusted Christ, committed your heart and life to him, then God has given you his life, new life, eternal life. And you share that with every other believer. That's part of the fellowship that we have. We share a common life. Secondly, we share a common love. Our fellowship is that we share a common love. It is a love for Jesus Christ, the one who gave Himself for us. And that love is expressed as we come together to worship Him, to let Him know how much we love Him. And we thank Him for all that He's done for us. I wonder why we come to church. I think it's good for us to ask ourselves that question regularly. Why do we come? What's the motivation for us to come? Do we wake up and say, oh, it's Sunday? I'm supposed to be in church. It's my duty, it's my obligation. I go every Sunday. And so I'm going to go to church. Now certainly in all of our lives as believers, there are responsibilities that we have in our Christian life to work out our faith and to live for Christ. But we ought to be here because we love our Savior. And because we want to express to Him that love. And we have the opportunity to do that corporately together, together with other believers to share corporately together our love and our adoration for Jesus Christ. So as we pray, as we give to Him in His work and as we sing together our praises, our hearts ought to be overflowing with love for Him. We share that together when we come together. We share in a common life. We share in a common love. Thirdly, our fellowship according to the use of the word in the Bible is of a common labor. We share in a common labor. We're in the work of God together. And that's exactly the way Paul's using the word here. We're partnering in the gospel with me. And as I defend and confirm the gospel, you are sharing, you're partnering, fellowshiping with me in that work, in that labor. So we share a common labor. We're working together. All of us in this church, in this body of Christ, we're working together to try to reach others with the gospel. That's part of our labor, part of our work. We're trying to get the gospel out to people so that they can hear how Jesus died for them and be saved. And then once they come to know Christ, we labor together. We work together to build them up. Biblical word is edify, build them up. Help them to understand more of the Word of God, to grow in their faith and ability to live out the faith that they claim to believe. That's our labor, that's our work. We work together in that. You see, when people come together with common life and a common love for the Savior and are involved in a common labor, that's what binds us together. That's what we have in common. We may have many differences of personality or likes and dislikes, backgrounds, maybe even ways that we talk if we're from different parts of the country. None of that matters in the family of God. It is the common life we share in Christ, the common love we have for him, and the common labor that we have for him. And if you focus on those things, you will find fellowship in the body of Christ. There's something that we're doing right now that many of you are aware of through our Bible fellowships. You may be familiar with the term Sunday School Classes. We call them Bible fellowships here to more accurately define them as centered around the Bible and promoting fellowship among believers. In our Bible fellowships, we're really initiating and just getting going real well now. The opportunity for Bible fellowships together to go serve in community ministries, to get the gospel out, to serve together in building up believers, and just being a neighbor and a help to other ministries in our community. What I find and what I'm already hearing reports of is that when people serve together, when they labor together, they experience oneness and fellowship, coining a partnership together. I would challenge you to first of all get involved in a Bible fellowship and then get involved to whatever degree you can in those opportunities for serving together. Occasionally someone will say to me, I'm just not finding any fellowship at Johnson Chapel. I can't get to know people. The church is too big. I rarely ever hear that from someone who is laboring with others in the work of God. When you get involved in a smaller group like a Bible fellowship or some other smaller group of ministry together, then you will get to know people better. You will begin to share your life together and you will labor together. It's amazing, the kinds of bonds that will be formed in that laboring that then you will begin to develop bonds that will enable you to then go to those people and say, I need you to pray for me. I need you to help me with this area of my life. Those bonds are formed as we share our common life, our love for Christ and our labor together with Him. So get involved, laboring together and you will find coining a, you'll find fellowship. That's the way the Bible is used or that's the way the word is used in this text, in this part of the Bible. But what are the results of true fellowship? That's the meaning of fellowship. That's what the word actually means is partnering together, sharing together in those ways. What are the results of this kind of fellowship? What happens when we share our lives together? Four things Paul talks about happening in this passage with the Philippians. The first one is gratitude. Gratitude happens. Notice what he says in verse three, I thank my God every time I remember you in all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy. Gratitude, I thank God. I'm praying for you with joy. Now in verse three, he literally is saying, every time I remember you or literally in all my remembrance of you, I thank God. In all my remembrance collectively, when I put all of my memories of you together, I thank God. Now that's important to see that I think that we can have gratitude for one another when we put all of our memories together. You see, a lot of people hold one word or action in a relationship they've had with someone, the partnership they've had with someone. Something was said five years ago, something was done ten years ago, and they always view the person through that lens. If we think hard enough, we can all find things that we've done wrong. My wife tells me about thirty years ago I did something wrong. And also thirty days ago and thirty minutes ago, and I'll not let it go. But we all do things that are wrong. We say things that are wrong. We blow it sometimes. We say things we don't mean. We regret later. Listen, don't take those things and use them as the grid or the lens through which you view that person. Take the total remembrance of them. In all your remembrance of them, Paul says I can be grateful. Oh yeah, there's a little blip on the radar screen there one time, but I'm not going to focus on that. In all my remembrance of you, I'm grateful for you. But then he also says in that verse, I thank my God every time I remember you plural. So he's speaking of all of you. He's grateful not only in all of his remembrance. He's grateful for all of you, verse four he mentions. I always pray in all my prayers for all of you, verse seven he mentions again, all of you, verse eight again, all of you, are you grateful for everybody? Are you grateful for everybody? I often say this, especially in our O1 classes, the 101 class that I teach, God never asks us to like everybody, but He does tell us to love everybody. And we can be grateful for everybody. Obviously you will find some people in any group, this large or even smaller, some people that you just don't click with, personalities different, kind of clash with each other and that kind of thing. But you can love that person and be grateful for them. Paul said, I am grateful for all of you and I pray for all of you. And he also says that gratefulness brings joy, verse four, I pray, I always pray with joy. That's the first mention of joy in the book. He's saying you're not a nuisance to me, you're not a weight on my mind, you are a joy to my heart. This is a church that was not full of bitterness and fighting and problems like some of the other churches that Paul had to deal with and some of the care of other churches weighed on him heavily, heavily, but this church was a joy to him. Why? Because they experienced the right kind of fellowship. They knew what it was to share their lives together. Once again I'm reminded that people who are in close partnership with each other, people who are laboring together, emphasizing their common love for Christ and their common life in Christ and working together rarely have trouble with each other, rarely fight with each other. I remember a story of a pastor, I read this story, pastor talking about sitting one day with a man in his church who was having lunch with, this was not me, it was someone else, I was reading about having lunch with someone, the guy happened to be the treasurer in his church and he was talking with this treasurer and he said, you know, there's a guy in the church just given me fits about everything, everything that happens, he's so critical. The other day he came to me and said, I was opening a closet door the other day in the church and I saw in there three brand new brooms. Why does the church need three brand new brooms? That's a waste of money for the church to buy three brand new brooms and the treasurer kind of smile. He said, pastor, I'm not sure if I should tell you this or not but since you're so worked up about this, I just want you to know if your whole years worth of giving were tied up in three brooms, you'd probably be upset too. You see the problem was this man was not really involved in the work, he was not laboring together. And when people are not busy laboring, they do what Paul says in 2nd Thessalonians 3, they become busy bodies. They start looking for things to criticize and complain about and gripe about and be bitter about. Let me ask you this morning, do you have such a critical spirit that you can't be thankful for others or when you think of others is all you think about what they said five years ago, what happened ten years ago, what do you think about? And all of your remembrance as you put it all together, can you be grateful? Let me ask you this morning, do you look for things to be thankful for or things to criticize? Let me ask you this morning, do you live so that other people can give thanks for you and their total package of remembrance of you is one that they can say, I thank my God in my, all of my remembrance for you. So one of the results of true fellowship, of sharing a common life and love and labor together is gratitude. A second result is prayer. When we fellowship with one another, we pray for one another, verse four. Paul says in all my prayers, for all of you, I always pray with joy. See partnership, sharing our lives together should motivate us to pray for one another. I think this is probably best experienced in small groups. We do not have yet a small group's ministry. We are pointing toward that. We do not have that yet. But you find I'm sure when you gather in small groups, maybe at the beginning of your Bible fellowship or wherever, when you get to really know people and start sharing your life with them and sharing your concerns for your family and prayer requests that your heart is motivated to pray for them. This past week, I was at Appalachian Bible College teaching a module in their Master's program and the teaching went from eight to five every day. We packed a whole semester's worth of teaching into one week and there was a lot of material to cover in that class. But we took the first 15 to 20 minutes every morning just to go around the room. There are five Master's students in the room. We went around the room and we said, hey, what's going on in your life today? What's happening with you? And I shared with them what was going on with my dad, Jan's dad, and they shared things that were going on in their lives and their families and we prayed for each other. And after five days of that sitting in that small group, really, with those five people praying together and thinking about their lives, I probably will never forget their names. I hope I will never forget their needs and when I have occasion to interact with them by email to be able to find out what's happening now about this situation you shared. You see, it's in those kinds of sharing together that we learned to pray for one another. We pray for one another. Now I want you to see three things that Paul says about his prayer life here. The first, this was continual prayer. He says, in all my prayers, all my prayers, he was always praying. He was consistently praying. It's not like, you know, I'm motivated to pray every once in a while. In all my prayers, indicating a consistent, regular prayer life. And this is not the only church Paul said this to. Paul also said something like this to the Roman church. Look at these verses on the screen real quickly. Romans 1, he told that church, God whom I serve with my whole heart in preaching the gospel of his son is my witness. Now constantly I remember you in my prayers at all times. And I pray that now it lasts by God's will. The way may be open for me to come to you. He said something very similar to the Colossian church when he said in Colossians chapter 1 and verse 3, we always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you. He said something similar to the Thessalonians church in first Thessalonians when he said, we always thank God for all of you mentioning you in our prayers. We continually remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. So to at least four churches, he said, I always pray for you. And the idea is in always praying that he prayed consistently regularly for them. So his prayer life was continual. Secondly, it was all inclusive in all my prayers for all of you. Not just praying for some of you, it was all inclusive. He was praying for everybody in those churches. And I would like to challenge you to pray for everybody in this church. He said, how can I do that? I can't remember everybody. I don't know everybody. How can I pray for everybody in this church? Well you may not catch everybody this way, but it's probably going to be about the most complete list that you would have in your home. It's your church directory. By the way, if you come to 101, you'll get a church directory. Even if you haven't joined yet, you'll get a church directory. But church directories are for members of our church. If you have a directory, you have at least the most updated list and roster of people that you would have. We try to do one of those every two or three years. And when I mentioned that, Pastor and Officer goes into orbit because it's a huge task. And he's the one that really pulls it all together and some of you help him a lot. But it's easy for me to say, we're going to do a new church directory and then he does all the work. And so he kind of, oh no, not another one. But we try to update that every so often. So we have a fairly consistent and updated list of people. I would challenge you, just do this. In your prayer time, take one page of pictures a day or go back to the column where the names are listed. There are more names than there are pictures. Some of us look better in print than we do in a picture. So there are more names back there. And so just take one row of names every day. You don't have to pray for the whole church every day. Take one row of names every day. And eventually, over a period of time, you'll pray for the whole church. I don't know if Paul did that. I don't think he had a directory. I don't know if he wrote down names of the people that he had ministered with in these churches. I'm not sure. But he does indicate. I don't think he's just blowing smoke here. He's saying, for all of you, I pray for all of you. And he's talking to the people in the Philippian church. I think he's being honest. I think he prayed for them by name. I pray for all of you. And then not only was his prayer continual and all inclusive, it was individual. Not only did he pray for everybody, the indication is he prayed for everybody individually. He prayed for all of them, each of them, not just Lord, bless the Philippians, the Colossians, the Thessalonians and the Romans. Amen. I think he was very specific in the way he prayed for people. It would be a good thing for us to do to pray specifically for each other's needs. One of the results of true fellowship is prayer. A third result is confidence. Confidence versus 6 and 7. When you're in partnership with other people, when you're sharing a common life, a common love for Christ and a common labor in the Lord, then it's going to produce confidence. This kind of confidence. Look at verse 6. Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. What is the good work in you that he's talking about? He's not talking about the gift he received. There are some who interpret this verse that way because Paul is writing to thank them for the gift, but he's not talking about God's started that motivated that gift in you. And I'm sure he's going to send more through you. He's not saying that. What Paul is saying, the good work in you is God's work of grace and salvation. The work that God began in you, that work of justification, of making you right with God, of declaring you to be righteous, of causing you to be saved, to have your sin forgiven, the work that God has started, he's going to continue. You see, there is a continual aspect of salvation. Not only are we saved, made a child of God at a point in time, God continues to work with us throughout the entirety of our lives to help us to grow to be more like Him. So there is a point at which we come to know Christ and we are saved, but there is a lifelong process of growing up into Christ, to be more like Christ. And Paul says, I'm confident the work he started back when you got saved, he will continue to do until the day of Christ Jesus. The day of Christ Jesus is the day when Christ returns and we go home to be with the Lord. So put all that together and here's what Paul's saying. I'm confident that when you came to know Jesus as your Savior, you were made a part of the family of God, but that just began a process where God was working in you to help you grow, to be more like Him. And he will finish that work when he comes for you and you join him in heaven. You know what we call that? We call that eternal security. That when God saves us, he doesn't drop the ball anywhere along the line. He keeps us in his family forever, and there are lots of verses that talk about that, but he keeps us in his family and he patiently works with us to make us more like Christ until the day we go home to heaven and then the process will be complete. Paul says, I'm confident of that. I'm assured of that. And why is he assured of that? Verse seven. It is right for me to feel this way about all of you since I have you in my heart. What he's saying is there's good evidence in your life. It is proper. There's good evidence that I can have this confidence about you because I have you in my heart. In other words, we do share this common life and love and labor for Christ. I know we are one in Christ, and so it's right for me to think this of you all. You've given evidence of the fact that you're genuinely saved by your partnership with me in the gospel, and it's right for me to know. To have this confidence that the work God started in you, he will finish when he gets you to heaven. Confidence. Now, that kind of confidence that what God has started in us, he's going to continue to do until he gets us to heaven. That kind of confidence gives us patience with each other. You see, we all fail one another from time to time. And it's very easy for us to become impatient with each other in this long process of Christ, making us more like Him that will end when we get to heaven. It's all full easy to do that. But being confident of the fact that God is going to continue to work with me until he gets me to heaven. I hope that will give you a little patience with me. And being confident of the fact that God's going to keep working on you until he gets you to heaven, I hope will enable me to be patient with you. And there's sometimes we need to look at each other and just say, God's not done with him yet. God's not done with her yet. Still some work to be done. Some rough edge is to be knocked off. And certainly we can say that about ourselves, can't we? The Paul's confident that God will continue that work until the day we see him in heaven. So fellowship with each other brings gratitude. It leads to prayer for one another. It gives that kind of confidence in each other. And then lastly, it gives us affection, affection for one another. Verse 8, God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus. When he says God can testify, he's basically saying, only God knows. It's difficult for me to express to you, nobody else can see this about me as deeply as I feel it. Only God knows. God is my witness. God can testify that I long for you all. And Paul expresses this affection with these two words, the first one, the word long, I long for you. It's a word which means a strong affection, a deep desire, an earnest desire for. In other words, I have an earnest desire for you to be with you, to see God working in your life. If we really are in the family of God, we ought to vow you and have that deep longing for other believers. I think it's one of the things in addition to our love for Christ that motivates us together together like this because you want to be with your family. You know, when holidays come along, Thanksgiving or Christmas or whatever they may be birthdays and anniversaries, you want to be with family, don't you? There's just something that draws you together about those special times. When it comes around to the Lord's day, there ought to be something that draws us together. I long for you. I want to be with you. I'm no different than anybody in this room. There are Sunday mornings when I wake up and I think, oh, it's Sunday morning. Okay? And I get up and there are other motivations for being here maybe than the most pure. Like someone said to the guy, you know, who said, I don't want to go to church this morning and his wife said to him, you got to go, you're preaching this morning. You've got to go. Sometimes that's the only thing that gets you out of bed and gets you here. But you know what happens? Once I start greeting people in the back and that's why I always love to do that a half hour before the service. Once I start greeting people and reconnecting with my family, there is something in me that just overflows. There is a love that comes out that just I love being with you all. I really do. We belong for each other when we have that kind of partnership and fellowship. Really is family. Paul said, God can testify how I belong for all for you all. You all. That's the West Virginia way of saying it. All of you with the affection of Christ Jesus, the second word he uses is affection. The second word is a deep word. It's the Greek word, splunk noise. Splatters all over you. This word does. It actually means your insides. It means your inner organs. That word was used to express the heart and the lungs and the liver and the kidneys in New Testament times. Paul says, I have this. I long for you all with the splunk noise of Christ Jesus. I love you with, we would say today in a very similar way, I love you with all my heart. In New Testament times they would say, I love you with both of my lungs or I love you with both of my kidneys. I just love you with this deep affection that comes from within. That's the love, the affection we have for one another if we share together a common life and a common love for Christ and a common labor together working for Christ. The result of our fellowship is a deep affection for one another. Only God could take a proud, self-righteous Pharisee like Paul. And who hated Gentiles and hated Christians and put within him a deep longing and love for people who are of a different race, only God could do that. And only God could do that for us to bring people together from different backgrounds, different likes and dislikes, personal tastes and all the rest, different personalities that sometimes clash and bump up against each other. Only God could bring us together in a common life that we share in Christ and a common love for our Savior that we express when we gather in this kind of setting. And a common labor as we work together to spread the gospel and build up believers, only God could do that, only God could give us a love that we have for each other. But that's the affection we have because of our fellowship in Christ. And this is what we need today, my friend. What the world needs to see and what Jesus said would distinguish us from everybody else is the common sharing that we have together, the fellowship that leads to a real deep sense of gratitude for one another, prayer for one another and a confidence that God's going to work on all of us and get us to heaven someday looking like Jesus and then a deep affection and longing for each other. That's what we need today. That is true biblical fellowship.